Relationship Editor (RE)

RealFlow’s “Relationship Editor” is a node-based system for defining the interactions between the scene’s objects. You can establish global and exclusive connections between a scene’s elements in a flexible way without considering hierarchies. With the “Relationship Editor” you always have full control over the currently active links and it is easy to create new connections or remove and change them. Various right-click menus also support your work and provide fast access to all important functions to add new elements, change visibility, or check connections.

The nodes in the “Relationship Editor” and RealFlow’s “Nodes” panel are synchronized and all actions you perform in the “Nodes” window will also affect the elements in the editor and vice versa. If you want to change a node’s name, for example, then you can do this either within the editor or the “Nodes” window. Of course, groups are supported as well and you can always check in the editor which elements a group contains and which connections they have. There is also a very simple rule that is valid for all nodes in your project:

We understand that it is not easy to say goodbye to familiar workflows and a change of habits always requires a certain amount of time, but we are convinced that you will love the “Relationship Editor” due to its flexibility, features and versatile possibilities. Sometimes a new start is also an opportunity to develop fresh ideas and get a better understanding of how things work. To get you started we have prepared a detailed introduction with lots of examples for many different situations.

In the following pages we will give you a comprehensive overview, with examples for common setups. For experienced users we have also added the appropriate “Exclusive Links” setup to compare differences and similarities directly.